The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Rathwell]

He is but it's a two generational difference. Zoomers and gen alphas didn't grow up with Warcraft. Same deal with cinema. James Stewart and John Wayne were amongst the biggest movie stars ever from the golden age of Hollywood, but today only boomers know about them. Zoomers don't know who the beatles are. Entire classrooms where the teacher asks who has watched Star Wars and no one raises their hand.

I'm 32, and I can guarantee you not a single person I know who does not play World of Warcraft would know who Arthas is, or at most would have a "is that a Warcraft thing?" reaction

[Vakir]

I'm 32, and I can guarantee you not a single person I know who does not play World of Warcraft would know who Arthas is, or at most would have a "is that a Warcraft thing?" reaction

You're talking to someone whose chronic mission is to make horrible takes for attention.

Like, impressively horrible ones. "Stormblood is my favorite 14 Expansion" bad.

[Sondrelk]

My issue with class order halls is that they are not a substitute for factions. There was a post about this earlier, but what set WoW apart and made it feel distinctive was that you were not playing a generic do gooder universal hero. You were playing as a soldier in one of two opposing factions with their own histories and identities and self interests that were exclusive. Factions is what this franchise is built on, not necesssrily Horde vs Alliance as WC3 introduced three more and TFT was about those three. Shadowlands didn't have Hord enad Alliance but introduced four new factions to join, though sadly they were weakly developed, did not fight each other, and were abandoned after one expac.

A chief problem with Legion, DF, snd TWW is the lack of a strong faction presence. You become a generic universal do gooder. The Legion class order hall content is also grossly oerrated and I am not sure why they keep getting brought up. The storylines were 2 hours max and none of them were good. The DK was horrendous. The class order halls were otherwise absent from the expansion, unlike going through esrlier WoW expacs where you are constantly viewing it through the lens of Horde/Alliance with your outposts and forces and questgivers everywhere. The order halls otherwise offered nothing else. They were just a place to check in at ocassionally to do the facebook mission table or convert currencies, or as an alternative AFK spot in between RBG queues only a portal away from the current city of Dalaran. If they want to bring back the order halls, it would either have to be in addition to a renewed faction focus or there would have to be major restructuring but I doubt Blizzard's seriousness to commit to something lile that.

Players vastly underestimate how much work it would be to create just one set of questlines for every class.
If all the player wants is one of the bi-weekly questlines from the Oasis, and that is the content you will get for that patch, sure. But I think players will expect more than five quests to hold you over for a patch. Especially if they also expect questlines besides that to move the story forward.

And of course, what would players even do in the Order Halls? The best Order Halls currently are Druid, DK, or Paladin. And only because they all add something. Unique portals in the case of Druids, Runeforge for DK, or being placed in the Plaguelands for Paladin. So basically, a class portal with attached class stylings, or Runeforge mechanics.

[Nymrohd]

I don't mind the play character being powerful. I don't mind them being extremely well connected. Time is the true constraint.
a) The player character cannot be everywhere at once. During Legion and BfA, the story did force that issue on us; we could not defeat the Legion in the Broken Isles and also be there to defend Thunder Bluff from infernals practically raining from the sky. By the time we got to the Exodar it had nearly fallen and it was too late for O'ros. In BfA there was fighting all over the map.
The real issue here is gameplay vs lore; gameplay makes teleportation seem completely casual (especially the Vindicar teleport anchors). Imo only prodigies in teleportation like Occuleth and Jaina should be able to teleport people from a warded area and it should be near impossible to teleport into a warded area. And it should only be people, not armies. Teleportation end points take effort to anchor and cannot be set up on the fly and even permanent portals can only teleport one person at a time.
B) Powerful people are tied down by political and social structures. Turalyon cannot come help us smite down Xal'atath cause someone needs to sign the patrole distributions for Westfall and make sure random lords from the House of Nobles don't skim the entire food safety fund into their pockets. Velen would really like to help power up the Sunwell but he also needs to keep New Shattrath safe and Divinius will have his ass if he doesn't rest properly and have lunch at a reasonable time.

And one thing that WoW has NOT done and fantasy settings constantly do; they set up powerful villain groups and do not destroy them immediately but rather have the powerful NPCs work to oppose them. So maybe if Khadgar stops his daily rituals and incantations and doesn't keep up with his research maintaining wards around Azeroth, the Legion will invade. So he can't come help unless he has failed already and the Legion is lose. The Uncrowned cannot spare Garona or Valeera to help spy on Xal'atath because they are playing a game of intelligence with nathrezim infilitrators left over from the Legion invasion and we will only find out when they get compromised and we need to clean up the mess.
If you set up stories like this, you both set up future villains and explain why no one is there to help. In tabletop RPGs that is absolutely necessary to maintain verisimilitude.

[Makorus]

I wish more stuff would be evergreen between expansions, where it makes sense, like how housing will be integrated. Order Halls being a game-long experience is another one that would work.

Class Order Halls are already ever-green, bar the obvious Mage/Rogue one, I guess.

They just don't add new class storylines because there's fuck-all to tell for like 9 of the classes, and the other classes get it told during the story anyway.

Yeah, they could have cannibalised the Tyr storyline for a Paladin Order Hall questline, or the Blue Dragon/Dalaran storyline for a Mage one, or they could just have not done that instead of wasting their time making content that only 1/13th of the classes will see?

I genuinely don't see what people want out of an Order Hall that's not "Hey Blizzard please release 13 wholly unique questlines every patch cycle".

[Nymrohd]

I genuinely don't see what people want out of an Order Hall that's not "Hey Blizzard please release 13 wholly unique questlines every patch cycle".

Well as I've said, I'd want to see them integrated in the leveling experience. Have small questlines that teach you your class and specs. At lvl 10 you are called to your order hall and introduced to your class, at set levels you are called back and shown different things. Kind of like what the monks used to get but somewhat more expanded (but not by a lot). What I describe is perfectly evergreen and doesn't really need to be touched in patches.

[Makorus]

Well as I've said, I'd want to see them integrated in the leveling experience. Have small questlines that teach you your class and specs. At lvl 10 you are called to your order hall and introduced to your class, at set levels you are called back and shown different things. Kind of like what the monks used to get but somewhat more expanded (but not by a lot). What I describe is perfectly evergreen and doesn't really need to be touched in patches.

I mean, realistically, it needs to be touched every time they change class-design slightly.

[Nymrohd]

I mean, realistically, it needs to be touched every time they change class-design slightly.

Why? It just needs to show you how to use your main abilities, interrupts and crowd control. It would need to be touched when they change your class significantly, sure. But not just because they changed the pathing of a couple of abilities. This isn't about teaching you how to maximize throughput. More about a way to teach Always Be Casting, Interrupt, Line of Sight, Hard CC, Mass CC, Triage, Active Mitigation etc. And if you are a priest, the class trainer just laughs at you.

[Xilurm]

I don't believe we've heard directly from Chris in quite some time, but no indication to assume he's uninvolved or anything like that. A lot of people made note that he had never been a fan of speaking on stage to the point of massive anxiety. There's a lot of extrapolating we can do with that and the information we have of the rocky Midnight announcement, but I think it's probably a lot less of a deal than most would think.

Is this even true or are people just assuming? We know he left Blizzard due to stress. But management back then was extremely messy. He was working on multiple games and fans were constantly shitting on the story.

And for some reason people made it out to be he just didn't want to appear on stage.

[Lady Atia]

Is this even true or are people just assuming? We know he left Blizzard due to stress. But management back then was extremely messy. He was working on multiple games and fans were constantly shitting on the story.

And for some reason people made it out to be he just didn't want to appear on stage.

Yes, he did talk about it after he left Blizzard.

[Ersula]

I know a month of radio silence from blizzard is standard after a big announcement, but I thought they'd switch things up considering how bad Gamescom was.

[Makorus]

Me when I don't get pre-release information that does absolutely nothing for me except giving me a bit of endorphin for 10 minutes:

[milkmustache]

Beledar as a Naaru crystal and the Emperor's vision of a falling star

I'm still not totally writing this off yet. Especially considering we'll likely be returning to Khaz Algar at some form during the rest of the saga, even if only for a questline. I think it's hard for me to imagine that Beledar is not a Naaru crystal. It's just right there for the taking as we enter a story that will look at the negative influences of the Light.

[Makorus]

I mean, it would be weird for them to say it's calcified Azeroth just to turn around and say it's not actually calcified Azeroth but a Naaru.

[Ersula]

I mean, it would be weird for them to say it's calcified Azeroth just to turn around and say it's not actually calcified Azeroth but a Naaru.

Rocks is rocks.

[Santandame]

Me when I don't get pre-release information that does absolutely nothing for me except giving me a bit of endorphin for 10 minutes:

I really don’t understand it. A lot of people in this thread acting like they don’t have other hobbies then get offended when others mention how unreasonable it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t impressed with Midnight’s announcement; trailer and features included. I was expecting more but after a bit of reflection I’m fine with what we’re getting and I’m fine with what was presented to us even if it was fragmented and done poorly. We have a pretty complete picture of what’s coming in Midnight now.

Alpha will start in the next month or so I imagine. People need to chill. It’s like expecting constant updates on other games in development, or TV shows/films, music albums etc. Always reminds me of when people get upset they don’t get alpha access, majority of the time just because they want to treat alpha like early access then complain they don’t have much to do at launch or that they’re bored of it and want the newest content update.

Just chill, we’re going to be getting a lot of news at some point soon.

[Raetary]

I mean, it would be weird for them to say it's calcified Azeroth just to turn around and say it's not actually calcified Azeroth but a Naaru.

They could easily make it work and make it a bit more interested by just having it be both.
It's a Naaru crystal that landed on Azeroth, and over who knows how long it's been there it fused with the surrounding Azerite.

Eventually becoming this pseudo Light/WS essence mix, which would also explain why Anduin felt like the radiant shards are so similar to Azerite.

[Sondrelk]

I still hope the Beledar thing will be resolved not as a Naaru spaceship, because that is a twist that doesnt really work beyond the words "surprise Naaru spaceship". And more that they are indicators of nexus points for Leylines, and that the reason it is shifting back and forth from light to void is that it is resonating (therefore, resonance crystals) with the one underneath the Sunwell.

Would explain most everything about the Beledar, and also make the Sunwell being made into Void more impactful, as it would be the final thing needed to make all the crystals underneath Azeroth into Void.

[Nymrohd]

I still hope the Beledar thing will be resolved not as a Naaru spaceship, because that is a twist that doesnt really work beyond the words "surprise Naaru spaceship". And more that they are indicators of nexus points for Leylines, and that the reason it is shifting back and forth from light to void is that it is resonating (therefore, resonance crystals) with the one underneath the Sunwell.

Would explain most everything about the Beledar, and also make the Sunwell being made into Void more impactful, as it would be the final thing needed to make all the crystals underneath Azeroth into Void.

We could also learn that all Naaru space ships are made from crystallized leftovers of stillborn world souls. So it's both

[huth]

I mean, it would be weird for them to say it's calcified Azeroth just to turn around and say it's not actually calcified Azeroth but a Naaru.

It could be both. It was basically described as the equivalent of a pearl.